The PSA Type System: Should it follow the photography market?

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

I don’t understand enough about how the self-issued promo photo is made to know why it isn’t a vintage print. Can you explain the arguments for and against?

I wouldn’t have any trouble accepting the composites as vintage, but I understand the other side of the argument.

From PSA:

Type I – A 1st generation photograph, developed from the original negative, during the period (within approximately two years of when the picture was taken).

Type II – A photograph, developed from the original negative, during the period (more than approximately two years after the picture was taken).

Type III – A 2nd generation photograph, developed from a duplicate negative or wire transmission, during the period (within approximately two years of when the picture was taken).

Type IV – A 2nd generation photograph (or 3rd or later generation), developed from a duplicate negative or wire transmission, during a later period (more than approximately two years after the picture was taken).


The "original negative" is the issue. Composite images are the pre-digital photo-shop. They are made from pieces of other images, or the original image with graphics added, that are put together and made into one image. The Dempsey-Tunney, for example, has a photo of Soldier Field with cameos of Dempsey, Tunney and Rickard added to it. Then the composite is reshot as a single image and printed. PSA will label it a Type III and kill the value for those who use the slab as a shorthand for everything else. Yet it is a contemporaneously issued photo promoting a very significant contest, the famous "Long Count" fight where Tunney got 14 seconds to recover because Dempsey violated the newly enacted neutral corner rule after knocking Gene on his ass.

The other thing that I am not sure has been explained well enough is that PSA doesn't really deal with the fact that in mass produced commercial photography, as opposed to fine art, virtually nothing we would handle is printed from the true original negative. Negatives wear out. They get damaged. This is especially true of glass negatives. Standard practice was for the photographer to safeguard the original negative and then create duplicate negatives for working uses: repeated printings, sending to news outlets and wire services, etc. When I picked a giant archive of Hollywood materials decades ago I learned all this firsthand when I found multiple negatives and transparencies in the files. I thought I had original negatives. I didn't. The originals were sent out for duplication and then returned to storage with the owner or photographer and the duplicates were actually used to create the prints that we all collect. So this whole "from the original negative" stuff is just a guess.